Gaming Stuff

March 30, 2012

It's been a couple weeks since we learned about certain NFL coaches offering "bounties" to players who hit opposing players so hard, they need to be carried off the field. So much has been going on in politics, current events and NCAA basketball, I've not had the inclination to comment — until now.

As you may have heard, New Orleans Saints Saints head coach Sean Payton has been suspended for an entire season, and his former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was suspended indefinitely, both for offering players $1,000 for hitting opponents hard enough to force them off the field and $1,500 for hits that sent opponents off on a cart.

Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis was suspended for the first eight games of the 2012 season because he defied NFL orders to put a stop to the bounty system, and assistant coach Joe Vitt was suspended for the first six games of the season. All of the suspensions are without pay.

Now here's where things get preposterous. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell stated, "We are all accountable and responsible for player health and safety and the integrity of the game. We will not tolerate conduct or a culture that undermines those priorites."

Umm, Roger, have you ever seen what goes on in the trenches between mammoth offensive and defensive linemen? Haven't you noticed all the clutching and grabbing by offensive linemen? If the refs wanted to, they could call holding on virtually every play. The "integrity of the game"??? WTF? This is a dirty, vicious, violent game. It ain't golf and it ain't curling. Don't insult our intelligence.

Not to be outdone, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft stated, "I'm very proud that the commissioner is putting the health and safety of players first. I don't want any person in this country, any mother in this country, worrying that her son can't play football for health and safety reasons." Excuse me? "Health and safety"? I'd say it's highly unsafe to be a quarterback at risk of getting slammed to the ground by a 300-pound lineman, and it's not healthy to sustain a concussion.

Granted, in recent years, the NFL has implemented numerous rule changes designed to protect quarterbacks and prevent head injuries caused by helmet-to-helmet hits and tackling that can cause serious injury such as the infamous "clothesline" and "horse collar" tackles. But the players just keep getting bigger, faster and stronger.

I've never been a fan of boxing because of its brutality. While I respect the skills of boxers, their rigorous exercise and training regimens and the difficulty of their sport, I simply do not enjoy watching a sport where the major objective is to knock out your opponent. I hate to hear of former boxers whose speech and personality have been impaired by multiple blows to the head, and I especially hate to hear of boxers dying in a match.

I love football because I enjoy the strategy, execution, variety of formations and play calling. The reverse, the draw play, screen passes, pitch-outs where the ball carrier suddenly stops and throws a pass, and the ever-present psychological games (e.g., get the defense expecting pass, pass, pass, then spring a run on 'em...) It's a darned entertaining game, but it is getting more dangerous as the players continue to grow larger, more powerful and faster.

I don't know what the answer is, but it is clear serious head injuries are becoming more and more of a problem. It is despicable that the New Orleans coaching staff was offering cash bounties for not just hitting opposing players hard, but for injuring them.

It is also surprising that players earning millions of dollars (or at the very least, several hundred thousand dollars a year), would be willing to seriously injure an opposing player, possibly ending his career, for a measly $1,000 or $1,500. Not a good commentary on the character of the players.

March 27, 2012

Remember the true story I mentioned the other day about the George McGovern voters in 1972 commiserating with each other in Manhattan, dumbfounded that Richard Nixon was re-elected? ("I can't BELIEVE Nixon won! I don't know ANYONE who voted for him!!!")

I got the feeling that sentiment was prevalent among network and newspaper reporters today after five U.S. Supreme Court Justices engaged in some tough questioning of the federal government's soliciter general regarding Obamacare's individual mandate to purchase health insurance.

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, who had long predicted Obamacare would sail through, perhaps by a wide margin, didn't mince words with how badly things had gone for the administration, referring to today's proceedings as "a train wreck."

We all knew that the four reliable conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, would oppose the mandate. But perhaps we didn't anticipate the moderate "swing voter" Anthony Kennedy asking tough questions of the administration's lawyers and sounding for all the world like he's not fond of Obamacare. Even the anchors of the big three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) seem to have adopted a fatalist attitude. YES!!!!!

Rush mentioned something today that sounds plausible: Many of the old media reporters are relatively young (below 40), and therefore haven't been taught properly about the U.S. Constitution's limiting intent on the federal government. They've learned from left-wing propagandists in K-12 and college. So at least they may have an excuse for naively believing that Obamacare is perfectly acceptable and not close to being unconstitutional.

But Toobin, age 51, is old enough to know better. He apparently is just like so many other progressives: prone to let his emotion and feelings about "fairness" trump logic, rationalism and critical thinking. Sorry Jeffrey, but there are only four of your ilk on the highest court in the land.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES — Maybe I spoke too soon. In Sunday's post, I might have come down too hard on neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman and underestimated the old media's extreme one-sidedness in painting the racism/racial profiling/innocent victim story line. They've got their preconceived notions, as was true in the bogus Duke lacrosse case, and they WANT SO BADLY TO BELIEVE IT'S TRUE!

Kudos to longtime reader Brent for his link, which led to some tellng background on Trayvon Martin. It is now becoming apparent that the victim is far from the angelic youth he's been portrayed to be. Granted, he had never been arrested, but he did have some disciplinary problems and may have been involved ln lawbreaking activities.

I probably was guilty of what I hate to see others do: Jumping to conclusions before all of the facts are in. So I am going to refrain from commenting any more about this specific case, but I reiterate that it's appalling so-called black leaders go ape shit over this case but ignore the horrors in African American communities going on every day. Last weekend, 10 people were killed and 40 wounded in over 50 shootings in Chicago. A few weeks ago in Detroit (actually Hamtramck, a formerly Polish suburb surrounded by the city), two young black women were kidnapped at gunpoint by the ex-boyfriend of one of them and his accomplice, thrown in the trunk of a car and driven off.

Their bodies were found buried Sunday in a shallow grave in a nortwest Detroit field. You guessed it: The perpetrators were also black. Hell would freeze over before the twin blowhards Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton would speak out against this type of crime or the carnage in Chicago. There's no money to be made there, and probably not as much news coverage. That's all these hustlers care about.

NOT YOUR FATHER'S VENDING MACINE — Apparently the venerable vending machine may be going the way of the pay phone. A recent Wall Street Journal story stated many younger people prefer to use debit cards or smart phones to purchase snacks or soft drinks, but retrofitting existing vending machines or buying higher-tech ones is often too costly for businesses and institutions.

So what have enterprising entrepreneurs done? Converted some vending machines into dispensers of unique and nontraditional items such as fishing bait (night crawlers and minnows) and prescription drugs. One man said the bait sells well, but if there's a power outage, it causes real problems including a putrid smell. Some folks have converted old mechanical cigarette machines into dispensers of homemade art trinkets, enabling budding artists to gain some exposure and earn a little coin. American ingenuity.... Good stuff!

March 26, 2012

Having watched the ongoing circus that is the Zimmerman Distraction for a few days, I think that there are two three items driving the publicity:

1. The Obama Administration badly needs to fire up African-American voters. A modern-day lynching is essential to keeping high turnout going into the fall election.

2. If Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and the rest of the racial hustlers are to remain solvent, they need some incidents to feed off of - regardless if whether they fit the template. Times are hard for these guys. With so many interracial couples and a black man in the White House, it's just not as credible to claim that there are Klansmen behind every shrub.

3. The MSM always loves a good race-riot story and this fits with their worldview, which hasn't changed since 1972.

Unfortunately for these groups, things are not likely to work out as they imagine. For one thing, Zimmerman isn't white, he's Hispanic. This, combined with Obama's nascent war on the Catholic Church, is likely to drive a deep wedge between the Latino and Black communities.

This is of course the problem with playing tribal politics - eventually you create too many enemies. But that's all the Dems know, so that's what they are doing.

THE REAL TRAGEDY: While protest marches spring up across the country, we should note that Detroit is still a hellhole, Flint is a debacle and an entire generation of black children are trapped in decaying schools where - despite the expenditure of huge sums of money - they will get almost no education. A few lucky ones will escape, but for the rest it is either the welfare dole or prison.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: If one set out to utterly ruin a people, one could not easily exceed what the Democrats have achieved in Chicago, Detroit and the other urban nightmares.

But it does not do to dwell on this, because people might wonder who was responsible, so let's get all worked up over a shooting in Florida.

March 25, 2012

It has been about one month since George Zimmerman shot and killed unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin at a gated community in Sanford, Fla. From what I've read, it does sound like Zimmerman has been a gung-ho cop wannabe, a vigilante waiting for an opportunity to burst out.

It is amazing that Zimmerman hasn't at least been charged with manslaughter, given that Martin was unarmed, and witnesses say Zimmerman chased after Martin and the two supposedly were fighting prior to the shooting. There have been claims that Zimmerman uttered a racial epithet when he called 911 to ask for police assitance.

Under intense pressure from all directions, Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee stepped down last week, aware that this case has grown far bigger than he can handle, and that state and federal investigators will take charge due to the obvious ineptitude of his department.

And, no surprise at all, ubiquitous race baiters Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton Jr. have entered the fray. Sharpton has participated in anti- racial profiling rallies, and Jackson has gone over-the-top, wearing a "hoodie" in honor of Martin and referring to Martin as a "martyr." The most hazardous place to be is between these two demagogues and a TV camera.

Look, I don't know what happened that Feb. 26. There are two sides to every story, and I'd just as soon we wait until the evidence is gathered and the prosecutors, who are far more qualified than most of us, can reach some reasonable conclusions and act accordingly.

The media's utter buy-in to the racial profiling argument is lame indeed. It jibes perfectly with the old media narrative that racism is still alive and well, and prevalent. To hear the hysteria at the Trayvon Martin rallies nationwide, our nation hasn't progressed at all from the early 1960s and Bull Connor's German Shepherds and fire hoses in 1963 Birmingham, Ala.

EVERY SINGLE YOUNG BLACK MAN could be gunned down in cold blood tomorrow, in the minds of the race baiting agitators. Racial profiling is rampant, in their minds, and we've got to do something about it. Such thoughts are evident of the alarmist, assuming-the-worst mindset of so many liberals.

It may not occur to these opportunists that young black men are killed far more often by other blacks than by whites. And, sorry to make this politically incorrect statement, but young black men commit more crimes than young white men.

George Zimmerman may have committed manslaughter or cold-blooded murder. If he's found guilty, he deserves to pay the price. But the exploitation and race-baiting breaking out all over the place are sickening, and simply more hype for network TV and race baiters who hope to line their coffers with contributions from their many dupe followers.

March 23, 2012

I guess the Michigan State Spartans, who played at a high level for most of the past couple months, were due for a bad game. Unfortunately, their "Murphy's Law" night came against the athletic, fast and talented Louisville Cardinals.

Louisville ended the Spartans' NCAA Tournament run Thursday night with a 57-44 victory that was far more one-sided than the score would indicate. Louisville's first half barrage of 3-point shooting (7-for-15) quickly piled up points, and the Cardinals' harassing, smothering defense threw a monkey wrench into the Spartans' normally well-executed offensive sets.

The Spartans were out of sorts, shooting poorly, turning the ball over, and even missing some easy layups. All-American senior forward Draymond Green (5-for-16 shooting) and starting sophomore point guard Keith Appling (1 out of 6) both had dismal nights. Louisville big man Gorgui Dieng blocked an incredible 7 shots.

Spartan Coach Tom Izzo said he thought his team was just tired and had "run out of gas" after a difficult couple of weeks. Congrats to Louisville; that's a formidable squad that should give the Florida Gators all they can handle in Saturday's tilt. Kentucky is still my bet to win it all, but Florida, Louisville and North Carolina also look powerful.

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that North Carolina State will defeat Kansas later tonight, and Ohio State will defeat Syracuse tomorrow night. Crow is ready and waiting should I need to consume it.

Lastly, I'd just like to thank Izzo, his staff and the Spartan players for giving us a lot of excitement this season and exceeding expectations. Although the Spartans lose Green and two other key seniors, Austin Thornton and Brandon Wood, they have a lot of new talent coming in next year, plus the return of budding superstar Branden Dawson, whose freshman season was cut short with a knee injury he sustained in the Spartans' March 4 loss to the Buckeyes.

RIDICULOUS TEBOW HYPE — The lamestream media is making a big deal out of Tim Tebow's trade to the New York Jets. The staunchly Christian Tebow will be picked apart by the secular leftist, abrasive media in the Big Apple, the narrative goes. Another version holds that New Yawk, that humungous cesspool of iniquity, will corrupt Tebow and cause him to backslide on his Christian principles (to the delight of leftists everywhere, no doubt).

To most of the media, a person who adheres to Christ's teaching in this day and age, who openly professes faith in Jesus as his Lord an Savior, might as well be a green Martian with antennae coming out of his head. He's like a bizarre and exotic creature to these heathens. Methinks Mr. Tebow will handle the coming three-ring circus with aplomb. And his refusal to lash out at the rude and idiotic interrogators (just watch, contraception and gay rights will come up soon), or succumb to the hedonism is likely to rile up the media, most of whom are spoiling for a fight. This will intensify their thinly-veiled disdain for a good man. Best to you, Tim.

March 22, 2012

After a few days away from the ranch, I am pleased to see my beloved Spartans still in the Big Dance and the hated Skunk Bears bounced early by a MAC team from Ohio.

While I was away, a fellow with the unlikely name of Stanley Fish outlined the new set of rules for discourse: Liberals can do anything they want because they are good while conservatives must always be abused because they are bad.

Much of the commentary in reaction to this has focused on how it reveals the hollow core at the center of the left, but to truly appreciate the implications we must (as usual) turn to the Belmont Club:

It is not correct to argue that ideology excuses everything; and provided that you mean well all is permissible. It doesn’t work that way. The Universe has an uncanny way of keeping score. You can run from consequences, but ultimately you can never hide.

Indeed, but there is more to it than that. There are to implications to the “Fish Doctrine” that I have not yet seen mentioned.

The first is that it ultimately demoralizes and therefore undermines the cause that adopts it. Liberals like feeling good about themselves – and being revealed to be amoral hypocrites causes those good feelings to go away. While it is true that the DC-Beltway liberal establishment has always had a Machiavellian core, the vast majority of the liberal base actually does believe in what it espouses.

For those people to learn that their leaders are simply playing them and willing to throw anyone under the bus for the pursuit of greater power is to finally wake up and realize that the Easter Bunny isn’t coming and never came.

Some will defect to conservatism in outrage, but the more likely reaction is apathy and withdrawal from the political scene – something the Obama campaign is already seeing.

The second - and more severe - consequence is that by announcing that adherence to liberalism carries with it the forgiveness of all sins, liberalism will find itself attracting those with the most sins to forgive.

The left is now the avenue for those who crave power to gain it, and the ongoing advertisement that one can get away with giving full vent to the hatred within. Anyone with anger issues or a need to settle scores is open to apply.

The fruits of this are already on display with the Occupy movement, and the media is dutifully airbrushing away the rapes, assaults and other crimes.

The end result of this second effect is to permanently alienate the vital center. While it may hearten the liberal cadre to know they can get away with anything, ultimately the brand will suffer irreparable damage.

There is an old saying that liberals want conservatives to shut up while conservatives want liberals to keep talking. This is one of those instances.

March 20, 2012

Back in 1982, the Detroit Tigers' home opener was snowed out by about a foot of the white stuff. Don't recall the exact date, but I'd say it was around April 8. About eight years ago I recall a freak late April snowfall that came well after the tulips, forsythias and daffodils were in bloom. To say it was a bummer would be a major understatement.

Well, this March it's been just the opposite. After our first mild winter with minimal snowfall in quite a few years, we have been experiencing record-breaking temperatures in the middle of March. Over the past weekend it got into the high 70s to low 80s. Today it reached about 83 degrees, and Wednesday is also supposed to be a "scorcher."

To keep things in perspective, the normal daytime high in lower Michigan in mid-March should be about 45 or 47 degrees. The daffodils and forsythias are in bloom at least two weeks earlier than normal.

A few weeks ago I purchased a new (used) car, a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu — about eight months after my 2001 Ford Taurus kicked the bucket. My wife recently started working full-time again, and we could no longer get by with one car.

Unfortunately, the vehicle is undergoing an ozone-type odor removal treatment because the previous owner was a smoker, and my loaner vehicle has a pathetic air conditioner. So I'm back to sweating while driving, just like in the Taurus, which was without working air conditioning in the summers of 2009, 2010 and 2011.

At least I remembered to bring some short-sleeve shirts with me for the week when I left my home early Monday. Just wish I'd brought shorts, too, as my "home-away-from-home" does not have air conditioning.

I certainly hope this is not indicative of a long, sweltering summer. But as the old saying goes about the weather in Michigan, "If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute." Having lived in Michigan for many years, I know it's not time to put away the snow shovel just yet.

March 19, 2012

It wasn't pretty, but the Michigan State Spartans remained alive in the NCAA Tournament with a 65-61 victory over the St. Louis University Billikens — a smaller margin of victory than I had predicted. The 29-7 Spartans have made it to the Sweet 16 for the 10th time in 15 years and will play a tough Louisville Cardinals squad Thursday night.

Sunday's game was physical and seemed to drag on forever due to a lot of foul shots and commercial breaks. Is it just me, or is the NCAA selling more and more commercial time during these games? They never end as quickly as they're supposed to, which delays the starting time of later contests. MSU was supposed to begin at 2:45 p.m., but it must have been closer to 3:30 p.m. when the game started.

We have now reached the stage of the tournament where the talent levels of opponents are elevated, and the margin for error is small. MSU's secret weapon is head coach Tom Izzo, who is renowned for preparing teams well for new opponents on a short time-frame.

No matter what happens from here on out, it has been a great year for the Michigan State Spartans, who entered the season unranked, tied with Ohio State and Michigan for the Big Ten regular season championship, won the Big Ten Tournament, and have made it farther than 75 percent of the teams in the tournament. Methinks Coach Izzo has a few more rabbits to pull out of his hat.

COMING SOON — We are now just days away from the U.S. Supreme Court taking up the constitutionality of Obamacare. Conventional wisdom holds that the conservative majority will rule that the mandate to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional. And because this Rube Goldberg legislation was thrown together and enacted haphazardly and hurriedly, its creators failed to include a severability clause. Such a clause would mean that if a court finds a portion of the legislation to be unconstitutional and therefore overturns it, the remainder of the legislation stays in place. So, because there is no severability, if the court overturns the mandate, the whole monstrosity gets tossed.

Strangely, some Republicans secretly hope the court upholds Obamacare to keep stoking intense opposition among the conservative ranks through the 2012 election. This intensely unpopular legislation could prove to be a valuable recruiting and fundraising tool for Republican voter rolls and candidates. These folks fear that if Obamacare is overturned, enthusiasm among Republicans to register, vote and contribute to conservative candidates will wane. For my money, I would much rather see the high court drive a stake through Obamacare.

It shows how utterly tone-deaf the president is that he keeps bragging about passage of this abominable law as one of his major achievements. Yes, and I'll bet the bull thinks smashing that designer bone china is quite an accomplishment, too.

March 17, 2012

While the Syrian people are being slaughtered, Asma al-Assad, the wife of thuggish dictator Bashar, has gone on an online shopping spree.

As reported by The Sun and other publications, the self-absorbed Asma was deeply concerned about ordering candlesticks, tables and chandeliers from Paris and instructed an aide to order a fondue set from Amazon.com — all while many Syrians faced food shortages and other hardships, not to mention bombs and bullets. And to think the vacuous publication Vogue wrote a suck-up puff piece ("A Rose in the Desert") about the glamorous Asma, her chic wardrobe and fashion sense.

This is the type of Marie Antoinette-like behavior that energizes and stimulates a revolution. It also causes many people, though they be realistic about the possible dire outcome if fundamentalist jihadists seize control in Damascus, to secretly hope the vicious dictator and his aloof wife meet the same fate as the French rulers in 1793.

The Syrian Army has used heavy weapons and artillery against its own people, killing and maiming thousands, including many children. This barbaric slaughter begs the question: Will the regime take the next step and use chemical or biological weapons against its own citizens? It's a sad, sad situation.

Still, as bad as the Assad regime is, and as blatantly as Assad and his Alawite henchmen are in Iran's vest pocket, it may well be the lesser of two evils. The greater evil could be a toppling of the regime and chemical and biological weapons falling into the hands of terrorists during the almost certain chaotic aftermath.

Ah, the Middle East. Ya gotta love it!

PORTENTS IN GAZA — Drowned out by the cacophony of the Syrian slaughter, $4 per gallon gasoline, and Republican primaries, recent rocket attacks on Israel by Iranian proxies in the Gaza strip and Israeli bombing retaliations apparently are a harbinger of bigger things to come between Israel and Iran. I'd better enjoy the beer-n-circuses --- er, BREAD and circuses, while I can, because who knows what our world will be like six months from now.

SPEAKING OF BREAD-N-CIRCUSES — The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, aka "March Madness," is in full swing and has brought tremendous entertainment in its first few days. For the first time ever, two No. 15 seeds have knocked off No. 2 seeds: The Norfolk State Spartans (who, ironically, wear green, just like the Michigan State Spartans), sent No. 2 seed Missouri packing with an 86-84 victory. The Tigers were one of President Obama's picks to make it to the Final Four. He's about as good at hoops projections as he is at economics.

The other upset really brought joy to my heart: The No. 15 Lehigh University Mountain Hawks defeated the No. 2 Duke Blue Devils, 75-70. I knew Lehigh was a tough team because way back in December they played at the Breslin Center in East Lansing, Mich., and led the Spartans by 3 at the half before losing by a respectable 9 points.

As for my Spartans, they won their first-round game Friday against Long Island University-Brooklyn, 89-67, and will play St. Louis University on Sunday at 2:45 p.m. St. Louis is a hard-nosed, physical team, but it's nothing the Spartans haven't seen before, and I believe they will prevail by 10 or more points. More on that tomorrow.

March 14, 2012

You've got to hand it to the Democrats: They come up with some of the most preposterous slogans and talking points.

They tried mightily to get "The Party of No" to stick as a disparaging epithet for the Republican Party. It didn't, but I am certain that among many conservatives, myself included, "NO!" was a huge compliment for the GOP. If only that "NO" carried more weight: No Obamacare, no stimulus, no trillion dollar deficits, no green energy boondoggles, no czars, no hack heading up the Justice Department...

The trumped up "war on women," a phony charge given greater prominence by Sandra Fluke and Rush Limbaugh, is the lefty parrots' latest mantra. One by one they parade out in front of the MSNBC microphones or onto the Sunday talk shows to spout this drivel. This will probably fade out in a couple months, to be replaced by some other silly meme.

Turns out there really are wars on women, some of them perpetrated by panty-waist progressives. American Thinker columnist Karl Spence provides ample evidence of lenient liberal judges letting violent criminals go free, only to have the scumbags rape, maim and murder women.

But heinous criminals don't harm women frequently, thank God, for the simple reason that statistically there aren't that many of them, and a large number of these monsters are locked up or six feet under. However, cruel governments and brutal fundamentalist religious groups do.

One of the most egregious examples of a true war on females is forced female circumcision in countries such as Sudan and Somalia. According to the World Health Organization, it is practiced in 28 countries. I wonder if leftists in love with Sandra Fluke are even aware of this excruciating horror visited upon millions of girls worldwide?

In China, female infanticide and forced abortions are fairly common. Families are limited to one child, and for many a male is the preferred sex.

And how about the laundry list of atrocities by the so-called "Religion of Peace":

- In some Muslim countries, women are not allowed to venture out unaccompanied by a male relative, and if a woman is raped, she needs four male witnesses, or a confession by the perpetrator, to be believed. A woman's testimony is considered half as valuable as a man's. Adding insult to injury, the woman rape victim can be stoned to death for disgracing her family.

- In Saudi Arabia 10 years ago, girls running out of a school on fire were forced by Islamofascist police to return to the building and burn to death because they went outside without wearing proper Islamic dress.

- In Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries, men who don't want a girl to go to school and get an education sometimes throw acid in the girl's face if she doesn't do what they say.

- Then there is the whole Muslim polygamy paradigm which treats women like chattel.

The point is, there is real barbarity and viciousness directed toward women, much of it in Africa and Asia. But instead of speaking out against that, the lame Democrats blow a gasket about Rush Limbaugh's name calling and the fact millions of people don't think taxpayers or Catholic institutions should be forced to pay for birth control to underwrite young women's sexual escapades. What a world.